Ambushing

Ambush marketing peaks during World Cup

Professor Simon Chadwick

Posted: July 8, 2014

Official sponsors of this year’s FIFA World Cup should expect more intense incidents of ambush marketing during the competition, according to experts from the Centre for the International Business of Sport based at Coventry University’s Business School.

A number of companies, such as Nike and Pepsi, have already launched their own marketing campaigns to coincide with the competition – despite not being official sponsors. Others, including the Mars brand Snickers and opticians Specsavers, have capitalised on the ‘bite’ by Uruguayan star Luis Suarez to bring attention to their own brands.

Here is a list of the top-10 ambushes that have so far taken place during this summer’s World Cup (for a classification of the types of ambushing, see the end of the posting):

1

Beats by Dr Dre

Promotional campaign featuring national team players and football imagery

Incursive ambushing

2

VW

Sustained multi-level digital campaign that uses World cup imagery, football theme, national team colours

Underpants worn and revealed in the player’s tunnel by Neymar during game against Cameroon

Incursive ambushing

7

Activia

Social media video employing Shakira, singing a new song ‘La, La, La’

Obtrusive ambushing

8

Heineken

Created a football stadium out of beer crates in a Dutch Supermarket

Obtrusive ambushing

9

Adidas

Burning of France’s 2010 World Cup coach in which players argued (N.B. Nike has replaced adidas since 2010 as France’s kit supplier)

Obtrusive ambushing

10

All things Suarez-related including Snickers, Listerine, Pizza Express, Barilla and more

Range of different brands capitalising on biting incident by incorporating relevant ‘themed’ communication and promotions and adverts

Obtrusive ambushing & associative ambushing

Professor Simon Chadwick, chair in Sport Business Strategy and Marketing at Coventry University’s Business School, believes there is more to come during the remainder of the competition. He said:

“Just as sponsorship has become big business, so too has ambushing. Corporations that have missed out on the big sponsorships are going to great lengths to undermine their rivals’ sponsorship of sporting mega events.

“The London 2012 Olympic Games demonstrated the power of ambush marketing to a global audience, with Beats Electronics, Paddy Power and Nike all implying association with the Games without paying any sponsorship fees.

“The World Cup is also one of the most valuable corporate sponsorship opportunities globally and in addition to the activity we have seen so far, we should expect more ambush marketing over the next couple of weeks.”

Ambushing involves the rivals of event partners, or official sponsors, trying to pass themselves off as official event sponsors or deflecting people’s attention from the official sponsors. Ambushers historically have engaged in activities such as the execution of stunts, smuggling products into event venues, and using star performers who are not signed to endorse products for event partners.

One high-profile example at the 2010 World Cup was Dutch beer giants Bavaria, who dressed thirty-six women in short orange dresses during a group game between Holland and Denmark, much to the alarm of official beer supplier Budweiser. The women were removed from the stadium, while Bavaria was threatened with criminal action.

Over the last six years, the CIBS research team has gathered and analysed evidence from nearly 1,000 cases of ambushing at sporting events in countries such as Great Britain, the United States, Germany, Brazil, Poland and China. The research indicates how widespread and increasingly prevalent ambushing has become over the last three decades.

The research also shows that there are various different forms of ambushing, including predatory ambushing, parallel property ambushing, and coat-tail ambushing (for a more detailed description of these types, please see the notes to editors).

For sporting events, although legislation is sometimes in place to protect against ambushing, significant extra costs are often incurred, for instance in protecting against and policing it. For official sponsors, ambushing potentially undermines the return on their investment in event sponsorship deals.

For consumers, ambushing can create a great deal of confusion and cause them to be misled. Consumers may also be affected by the policing of ambushers and the protection of official sponsors, potentially raising questions about people’s rights when entering venues or exclusion zones.

Professor Chadwick continued:

“Recent research demonstrates that as many as 50% of consumers may be led to believe that ambushers are official sponsors. In such cases they are more likely to recognise and recall ambusher brands. One case of this is Carlsberg, who were voted as the most memorable marketing campaign of the 2010 World Cup, despite not having any official link with the competition. Official sponsors will be susceptible to almost half of the benefits they expected from their deals being appropriated by other companies.

“Countries staging major sporting events must take ambush marketing seriously, using legislation where necessary. Failure to do this will seriously affect their chances of hosting similar events in the future because of their inability to attract sponsors, who will question whether event sponsorship is the most beneficial way of spending their marketing budgets. Without this considerable investment organisers will not be able to cover the cost of staging major sporting events.”

Note:

Incursive ambushing

An aggressive, a predatory or an invasive attempt by a brand (that has no official and/or legal right of association with an event) that is deliberately intended to threaten, undermine and/or distract from an official event sponsorship by another brand.

Obtrusive ambushing

A prominent or an undesirably noticeable attempt by a brand (that has no official and/or legal right of association with an event) that may deliberately or accidentally undermine and/or distract from an official event sponsorship by another brand.

Associative ambushing

An attempt by a brand (that has no official and/or legal right of association with an event) to imply, or create an allusion, that it has a connection with the event.

About Professor Simon Chadwick

Professor Simon Chadwick set-up and edits The Scorecard. He is Director of CIBS (Centre for the International Business of Sport) at Coventry University, where he works as Professor of Sport Business Strategy and Marketing. Simon tweets via Prof_Chadwick